Good Islam and Bad
Islam

But
Islamic terrorism is not a separate component of
Islam that can be cut off from it. Not only is it
not un-Islamic, but it expresses Islamic religious
imperatives. Muslim religious leaders have
occasionally issued fatwas against terrorism, but
terrorism for Muslim clerics, like sex for Bill
Clinton, is a matter of definition. The tactics of
terrorism, including suicide bombing and the murder
of civilians, have been approved by fatwas from many
of the same Islamic religious leaders that our
establishment deems moderate. And the objective of
terrorism, the subjugation of non-Muslims, has been
the most fundamental Islamic imperative for the
expansionistic religion since the days of Mohammed.

Our strategy, in Europe and America, under Bush and
under Obama, has been to artificially subdivide a
Good Islam from a Bad Islam and to declare that Bad
Islam is not really Islam. Bad Islam, as Obama
claims, “hijacked” a peaceful religion. Secretary of
State Kerry calls Bad Islam’s followers,
“apostates”. ISIS speaks for no religion. It has no
religion. Which means the Islamic State must be a
bunch of atheists.

Our diplomats and politicians don’t verbally
acknowledge the existence of a Bad Islam. Even its
name is one of those names that must not be named.
There is only Good Islam. Bad Islam doesn’t even
exist.

This isn’t just domestic spin, which it is, but it’s
also an attempt at constructing an Islamic
narrative. Our leaders don’t care what we think.
They just want us to keep quiet and not offend
Muslims. They do care a great deal about what
Muslims think. And so, in their own clumsy way, they
try to talk like Muslims.

They are attempting to participate in an Islamic
debate without the requisite theological
credentials. They want to tell Muslims that they
should be Good Muslims not Bad Muslims, but they’re
too afraid to use those words, so instead they
substitute Good Muslims and Not Muslims. All Muslims
are Good Muslims and Bad Muslims are Not Muslims is
their Takfiri version of the No True Scotsman
fallacy.

Our counterterrorism strategy has been constructed
to convince Good Islam to have nothing to do with
Bad Islam. And any of us who criticize Good Islam or
argue that the artificial distinction between Good
Islam and Bad Islam, between Saudi Arabia and ISIS,
between Iran and Hezbollah, between Pakistan and the
Taliban, is false are accused of provoking Good
Islam to transform into Bad Islam.

Nothing so thoroughly proves that the difference
between Bad Islam and Good Islam is a lie as the
compulsive way that they warn that Good Muslims are
capable of turning into Bad Muslims at any moment.
Offend a Good Muslim, criticize his religion, fail
to integrate him, accommodate his every whim and
censor what he dislikes and he’ll join ISIS and then
he’ll become a Bad Muslim.

After every terror attack, the media painstakingly
constructs a narrative to determine why former
moderates like Anwar Al-Awlaki, the Tsarnaevs or the
San Bernardino killers turned bad without resorting
to religious explanations. Their efforts at
rationalization quickly become ridiculous; Nidal
Hasan, the Fort Hood killer, contracted airborne
PTSD, Anwar Al-Awlaki, the head of Al Qaeda in
Yemen, became an “extremist” because he was afraid
the FBI had found out about his prostitutes and the
Times Square bomber turned into a terrorist because
his “American Dream” was ruined.

Nobody, they conclude, becomes an Islamic terrorist
because of Islam. Instead there are a thousand
unrelated issues, having nothing to do with Islam,
which creates the Muslim terrorist. Even the term
“Radical Islamic Jihadist”, an absurd circumlocution
(is there a moderate Islamic Jihadist), has become a
badge of courage on one side and a dangerous,
irresponsible term that provokes violence on the
other.

But what is the distinction between Good Islam and
Bad Islam? It isn’t fighting ISIS. Al Qaeda and the
Taliban do that. It isn’t terrorism. Our Muslim
allies, Saudi Arabia, Pakistan, Turkey and Qatar,
are hip deep in the terror trade. It isn’t equality
for non-Muslims. No Muslim country under Sharia law
could have that. Equality for women? See above.

What are the metrics that distinguish Good Islam and
Bad Islam? There aren’t any. We can’t discuss the
existence of Bad Islam because it would reveal that
Bad Islam and Good Islam are really the same thing.

Our Good Islam allies in Pakistan fight Bad Islam’s
terror, when they aren’t hiding Osama bin Laden. Bad
Islam in the Islamic State beheads people and takes
slaves and Good Islam in Saudi Arabia does too.
Qatar is our Good Islam ally helping us fight Bad
Islam terrorists by arming and funding Good Islam
terrorists who sometimes turn out to be Bad Islam
terrorists so we can’t figure out if the Islamic
terrorists the CIA is routing weapons to are Good
Islam terrorists or Bad Islam terrorists.

The moderate Muslim Brotherhood wins democratic
elections. The extremist Muslim Brotherhood then
burns down churches. The moderate Palestinian
Authority negotiates with Israel and then the
extremist Palestinian Authority cheers the stabbing
of a Jewish grandmother. The moderate Iranian
government signs a nuclear deal and then the
extremist Iranian government calls for “Death to
America”.

Like the saintly Dr. Jekyll and the mean Mr. Hyde,
Good Islam and Bad Islam are two halves of the same
coin. When Dr. Jekyll wanted to act out his baser
nature, he took a potion and turned into Mr. Hyde.
But the nasty urges were always a part of him. When
a moderate Muslim pulls a Keffiyah over his face and
starts stabbing, bombing or beheading, he doesn’t
become an extremist, he just expresses his dark
side.

Good Islam borrowed all sorts of noble sentiments
from Judaism and Christianity. But when non-Muslims
didn’t accept Islam, then Mohammed stopped playing
nice and preached murder. Bad Islam is not something
ISIS invented on a website. It’s always been a part
of Islam. We attempt to separate Good Islam and Bad
Islam because we don’t like being beheaded. But
Muslims don’t make that distinction.

Our counterterrorism strategy is based on empowering
Good Islam, on building coalitions with Muslims to
fight terrorism and enlisting their cooperation in
the War on Terror. But we’re trying to convince Dr.
Jekyll to help us fight Mr. Hyde. And Dr. Jekyll
might even help us out, until he turns into Mr.
Hyde.

Our moderate Afghan Muslim allies, when they’re
aren’t raping young boys (one of their cultural
peculiarities we are taught to ignore), sometimes
unexpectedly open fire on our soldiers. The Muslim
migrants who arrive here to “enrich” our societies
sometimes start shooting and bombing. The head of Al
Qaeda was hanging out near the West Point of
Pakistan. The mastermind of 9/11 was saved by a
member of the Qatari royal family. The call is
coming from inside the house. Mr. Hyde is Dr.
Jekyll.

When we “empower” and “build coalitions” with Good
Islam, we’re also empowering and building coalitions
with Bad Islam. Just ask all the Muslim terrorists
running around with our weapons.

Our leaders want Good Islam to shield us from Bad
Islam. If Good Islam is out front, then Muslims
won’t see a clash of civilizations or a religious
war, but a war between Good Islam and Bad Islam. But
the Muslim understanding of Good Islam and Bad Islam
is very different from our own.

Sunnis see their Jihadis as Good Islam and Shiites
as Bad Islam. Shiites look at it the other way
around. The Muslim Brotherhood, that our elites were
so enamored with, saw secular governments as Bad
Islam. To win them over, we helped them overthrow
more secular governments because our leaders had
adopted an understanding of Good Islam in which
giving Christians civil rights was Bad Islam.

To win over Good Islam, we censor cartoons of
Mohammed and criticism of the Koran, open our
borders, Islamize our institutions and then wait to
see if we’re on the good side of Good Islam. We
adapt our societies and legal systems to Islamic
norms and hope that it’s enough to let us join the
Good Islam Coalition. If we go on at this rate, the
experts will tell us that the only way to defeat
Islamic terrorism is for us to become Muslims. Only
then will we become members in good standing of Good
Islam.

There is no Good Islam and no Bad Islam, as Muslim
leaders occasionally trouble to tell us. The
distinction that our leaders make between Good Islam
and Bad Islam is not theological, but pragmatic.
They dub whatever is shooting at us right now Bad
Islam and assume that everything else must be Good
Islam. That is the fallacy which they used to arrive
at their Tiny Minority of Extremists formula.

There is no Tiny Minority of Extremists. Behind the
various tiny minorities of extremists are countries
and billionaires, global organizations and Islamic
banks. Outsourcing our counterterrorism strategy to
the countries and ideologies behind the terrorists
we’re fighting isn’t a plan, it’s a death wish.

Islamic terrorism is just what we call Islam when
it’s killing us.

The Jihad isn’t coming from some phantom website.
It’s coming from our Muslim allies. It’s coming from
Pakistan, Turkey, Qatar and Saudi Arabia. It’s
coming from the Muslim Brotherhood and its front
groups. It’s coming from the moderate Muslim leaders
that our leaders pose with at anti-extremism
conferences. And it’s coming from the mosques and
homes of the Muslims living in America. There is no
Good Islam. There is no Bad Islam. There is just
Islam.